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Category: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is twice as valuable as IQ in the business world, since the emotional health of the team directly impacts productivity, motivation, engagement and loyalty. This means a person has the emotional intelligence that encompasses an ability to 1) identify and manage one’s own emotions, 2) identify and understand someone else’s emotions, and 3) relate well to others personally and professionally even under the most stressful situations. This requires that a person be self-aware, self-regulating and empathetic. These relationship-based skills are ones wherein women certainly excel.

Emotional Healing — We Can’t Do It Alone, We Need to Heal in Relationship

Written by Maria Connolly on . Posted in Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional healing is a combination of doing personal, internal work and putting your new skill into practice within your relationships — it takes both.Emotional healing is part of our life journey to recognize how others have impacted our lives in the past and how we can process any hurt so that we may keep moving forward. Hiding from or trying to deny the pain causes the wound to go deeper and become more long-lasting. Emotional healing embraces the pain in the sense of using it to learn about ourselves and how we fit into the world around us. It’s a mindful process of observing, without judgment, identifying the thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions that we feel, then learning to channel them in productive ways. 

There’s no denying that emotional pain hurts! And we don’t like to hurt. Yet trying to avoid emotional pain makes us live in fear. We’ll end up making decisions that avoid commitment, risk or failure. As Eleanor Roosevelt wisely said, “We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.” 

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Deepen Your Emotional Maturity & Trust Your Feelings When Under Stress

Written by Maria Connolly on . Posted in Controlling Stress, Embodied Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Self-Leadership Skills.

Even with emotional maturity, there are times you don’t trust your feelings, so here’s how to consistently and positively respond to emotional stress…“Who we are is how we lead. We can either lead from heart or we can lead from hurt.” ~ Brené Brown

Often people come to me to bounce off life experiences — to either feel validated or get a reality check. They’ll say something like, “Maria, does this seem right to you? Is it okay to feel what I’m feeling?” I really appreciate being in their life this way. And I love seeing how their mindfulness deepens and adds richness to their emotional maturity over time.

Being mindfully aware of how we feel in our emotions and in our body and then making intentional choices in response is how we manifest emotional maturity. We own our feelings and the path we choose, without complaining, blaming, or making excuses.

This process of emotional growth never ends, because you experience new situations and new feelings. And your current well-being plays a huge part — what you can handle one day may seem overwhelming when you’re overly tired, undernourished or dehydrated.

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Crisis and Trauma: When the Present Collides with the Past

Written by Maria Connolly on . Posted in Emotional Intelligence, Self-Leadership Skills.

When you experience a current crisis and trauma from the past resurfaces because of it, it’s important to listen to what your emotions are telling you.On May 6th, 1976 right around 9pm the ground began to shake. I lived in northern Italy and I was six and a half. I was at home with my 3 year old brother and my grandma. My parents were on their way home from work.

The building we lived in shook for what felt like an eternity. I didn’t know what an earthquake was but I knew that houses were not supposed to shake. Because of her age, my grandma froze and the three of us huddled in the dark kitchen, until my father came to get us.

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Feel Your Feelings: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Body

Written by Maria Connolly on . Posted in Emotional Intelligence, Self-Leadership Skills.

Is it hard to feel your feelings, after a lifetime of suppressing your emotions? Use my 4-step process to safely feel your feeling fully and productively. “We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.”– Albert Einstein

Everyone is entitled to their feelings. This statement is powerful. But accepting its validity is only part of the process when you’re learning to feel your feelings. I’ve seen people cling to this piece of wisdom and not grow beyond it.

Scenario 1: They use their emotions to punish themselves. For example, their thinking goes something like this, “She hurt me. I’m entitled to feeling hurt, because everybody lets me down. Nobody loves me.” They get stuck feeling their feelings and they become overwhelmed by them, because they don’t know how to fully process them in a healthful way. And because those feelings feel so bad, they sink into depression and despair.

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Experiencing Emotions Fully & Safely Through Journaling – Find the Style that Works for You

Written by Maria Connolly on . Posted in Emotional Intelligence, Self-Leadership Skills.

Journaling is an invaluable tool for experiencing emotions fully and safely, without hurting yourself or anyone else. Find a journaling style that fits you.“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” ~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Emotions – we love them when they make us feel good. But when we’re experiencing emotions that make us feel uncomfortable we want to control our emotions, turn our emotions off, hide our emotions, manage our emotions, or numb our emotions. We can even hate ourselves for the way we feel.

It’s easy to label emotions as good or bad, but your feelings are simply messages from your body and mind informing you that you have a situation needing your attention; and you’re going to learn something from it!

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